


Please Take Your Canine Elsewhere

by autobotscoutriella



Category: Transformers: Prime
Genre: Community: fandomweekly, Dogs, Gen, Pre-Canon, Ratchet is not amused, Shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-20
Updated: 2019-09-20
Packaged: 2020-11-02 09:49:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20704691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/autobotscoutriella/pseuds/autobotscoutriella
Summary: Bulkhead and Bumblebee bring an unexpected guest back to the Autobot base. Ratchet is not amused.





	Please Take Your Canine Elsewhere

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for [FandomWeekly](https://fandomweekly.dreamwidth.org/248005.html) for the prompt "Inner Child".

Ratchet sat back on his heels and admired the delicate balance of his latest modification to the groundbridge—a carefully constructed network of wires and cabling that would, with any luck, stabilize the system and prevent it from occasionally redirecting its passengers to the wrong zip code entirely. It had taken weeks to find the right supplies and work out the details of where and how to connect them, but the results were exactly what he had hoped for. Now, as long as the afternoon stayed quiet, he could finish the last few soldering steps, and their groundbridge would once again be ready for—

_CRASH_.

The shouting that immediately followed told him that the afternoon would not be staying quiet. 

"What in the name of the Primes is going on out here?" Ratchet carefully set his project up out of tripping reach and stalked into the main room, where he was greeted with a scene of utter chaos.

Bulkhead stood sheepishly beside what had once been a stack of metal beams intended for repairs on the upper half of the former missile silo, clearly the source of the noise. Bumblebee hung off his upper arm by one hand, apparently in the middle of _climbing_ his fellow Autobot, and dashing around the room like a black and white blur—

Ratchet stood very still for a moment, silently cursing his entire existence, and asked, "What is _that_?”

"It's called a _dog_, Doc." Bulkhead sidestepped the animal with a grin, tossing Bumblebee none too gently back across the room. The scout landed on his feet and was immediately down on one knee, beeping and whistling in an attempt to coax the dog over to him. "He followed us home. Can we keep him?"

Ratchet folded his arms across his chest and glared, trying to pretend that Bumblebee hadn't turned a wide-eyed pleading gaze at him. "You're not as funny as you think you are."

"Oh, come _on_, Ratch. It's raining out there." Bulkhead couldn't disguise the amusement in his voice. Bumblebee whistled and chirruped in agreement. "We just let him in to hang out for a bit until it stops.”

The medic eyed the muddy tracks across the floor disdainfully. "What is that in its mouth?"

"Just a...bit of scrap wood," Bulkhead offered, sheepishly. He took a step sideways, but not quite fast enough to hide the small human-sized table that was now missing a leg. "C'mon, Doc, Arcee, Cliff, and Prime won't be back for a few hours, so it's not like we'll be in the way. You won't even know it's here."

The dog dropped the table leg in front of Bumblebee, who picked it up carefully and tossed it across the room. Ratchet eyed the barking dog suspiciously as it took off after the table leg, which bounced off a wall and clattered to the floor.

"...Right."

But there was no arguing with Bulkhead and Bumblebee when they had apparently decided to act like sparklings for the day. Ratchet retreated back to his lab and studiously ignored every crash, clatter, and thud from the main room, no matter how much barking and uproarious laughter accompanied it.

He would _not_ be distracted by childish shenanigans. Half the base still needed repair, and if he was the only one willing to work on it, so be it.

His resolve lasted until he had soldered the third wire, at which point he looked up and found himself face-to-face with an unusually large dog with a table leg in its mouth.

The dog dropped the table leg in front of Ratchet's project and barked expectantly. Ratchet stared at it for a few seconds and said, "No."

The dog whined. Bumblebee appeared in the doorway and beeped at him. _Come on, Doc, just this once! You don't wanna disappoint him, do you?_

Ratchet heaved a pained sigh. "Don't you and Bulkhead have _anything_ better to do? I've seen more maturity out of new recruits."

"Where's your sense of fun, Doc?" Bulkhead shouted from the main room. "Just toss the stick for the dog, it won't kill you. Tap into your inner youngling or whatever."

The look Ratchet gave him could have frozen lava. "I don't have one of those. Please take your…_canine_ elsewhere."

Bulkhead whistled. The dog sat down and barked again. "I think he's waiting for you to throw the stick, Doc."

Muttering about damned younglings and their damned pets, Ratchet picked up the table leg between two fingers, eyeing the teeth marks in it suspiciously, and pitched it over Bumblebee's head. Dog and Autobot took off at the same moment with a clatter of metal and a clamor of barking, and something else fell over.

Ratchet rested his forehead in both hands and listened to the racket for a moment, hoping that none of the noise indicated anything _permanent_.

"Don't worry, we'll clean that up!" Bulkhead yelled over the sound of the dog barking, and Ratchet decided he didn't want to know.

He turned his attention back to the groundbridge with a shake of his head and a wry smile, carefully hidden from either of the two in the main room.

At least they still had—what had Bulkhead called it? 'Inner younglings'? What a ridiculous concept—after so many years at war. It was better than the alternative, he supposed.

But they damn well _would_ be cleaning up the results of their afternoon, whatever they were. This was a military base, not a playground.

Presumably they would remember that eventually.


End file.
